Hi Omer
i used to work in printing and do print audits on schools.
although i used to promote a system in competition to it, i would advise the Xerox wax printers. Surprisingly good quality and very low per copy, especially with high coverage.
Alternatively, i may advise actually getting a colour copier, i am sure a dealer on here would be willing to assist. This may be a better option, especially if you are producing relatively large volumes
I hope this helps

It's not just the price of the toners you want to be looking at. A lot of colour printers have other consumables such as drums and transfer kits etc.

I recently bough a dell 1320, it takes compatible toners which cost next to nothing off ebay and it doesn't take any other consumables. You can pick up a set of toners for £15 which will do 1000 copies. Oh yes, and it's a network printer as well.

Much depends on the volume you're doing but a Xerox printer with Page Pack is an excellent option - it covers toners, maintenance kits, engineer callouts and has different usage bands. It even covers a replacement printer if you do so many prints it becomes beyond being able to be repaired.

As Jonathan says, the other consumables can mount up fast and get quietly ignored in magazine running cost reviews as well as online page cost comparisons. For example, Kyocera are low cost per page until the maintenance kit invoice hits your wallet.

Having been in the printer/copier industry with Canon and Ricoh in a past life i too carriede out many print audits.

It depends on what sort of printing you are doing. It is very difficult to work out the cheapest cost per page on a printer, it depends what coverage you are printing. All the printer / copier Companies use a system of average percentage coverage per page to give you a cost of printing, the industry standard is 6% coverage at a set price. ( you can see how much this looks like by folding an A4 sheet in half 4 times) This price these days is around 5p for colour and 0.5p mono. Now if you are printing 100% coverage your true cost per page is NOT 5p per page remember this price is for 6% it is more like 20p per page!

If you are printing with lots of coverage on a page you would be better using a ' copier' (MFD) rather than a desktop printer with a SHORT TERM agreed cost per page service contract that includes ALL toner and parts. If you would like some more info send me a PM and I would be happy to help failing that get in touch with Chas Jordan a 4N member.

This depends so much on the actual volume you really print. Please tell us more.

One interesting move in the market: Inkjet manufacturers have now introduced more workgroup or office printers. Examples are the Epson Workforce series or HP OfficeJet 8100. Print costs per page are claimed to be substantially lower than consumer inkjets. They might even beat colour lasers.

I recommend a Dell 3110 - they're suitabel for mid-volume printing and while the toners are very expensive, we've used ours to print minimum 100 double sided sheets minimum per day and never had to change the toner cartridges in 3 years.

If you have are doing any volume I would strongly suggest you look at outsourcing this to a printing company. In house will definitely cost you more, Printer purchase, paper and tone stock, Electric, Staff wages etc.